RUSSIAN FILM WEEK IN KYIV AT MOLODIST FILM FESTIVAL

Within one of the most exciting non-competition programs of the festival, the 43rd Molodist IFF, with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, will present eight films from Russia – eight cinematic works by reputable masters, as well as young directors of the high-quality Russian art house.

She, by Larisa Sadilova, is the story of a Tajik girl who was brought to Moscow and abandoned there. According to the director, the film was inspired by real events, and almost all of the cast are non-actors. Sadilova started her career in the cinema as an actress, but true success came with her directing debut, Happy Birthday! (1998), winning awards at Kinotavr, a Georges Sadoul Award, awards at film festivals in Mannheim, Cottbus, and Bratislava. Another of her films, With Love. Lilya, won a Tiger Award in Rotterdam and a Gran Prix in Warsaw.

The Delivery Guy is the second feature-length film by Andrey Stempkovsky, director, journalist and photographer, contender and laureate of many film festivals. In the film, Alexei has a terminally ill father, whose only chance for survival is a costly operation in Germany. The simple pizza delivery boy gets an opportunity to make the much needed money. But will he be capable of committing a crime? The film was premiered at the 42nd International Film Festival in Rotterdam, in the Bright Future program section. Stempkovsky’s criminal drama will be presented at Molodist by actor Alexander Plaksin.

Romance With Cocaine, the last of the films made by Gennadiy Sidorov (1962 − 2011), a Russian film director, whose most famous film, The Old Women, picked up 4 awards at Kinotavr-2003. In Romance With Cocaine, the director showed the raw truth of the world of a person whose search for himself and his place in life brings him down, into the unending darkness. The film stars Igor Trif, who also acts as the producer. Among other actors is the famous Russian celebrity socialite Kseniya Sobchak. The film will be presented at Molodist by director of photography Sergei Kulishenko.

Farewell is the debut of Dmitriy Konstantinov, journalist and screenwriter, in feature-length cinema. The film is about a popular Russian actress Anna Ryabinina, who over ten years has been living and making a career in America. Her brief visit to Moscow becomes the craziest, yet at the same time the most important, experience for her. Farewell was selected as the closing film for Kinotavr. At Molodist, it will be presented by actor Vladimir Vinogradov.

 The film with a tell-tale title Judas by Andrey Bogatyryov is his second feature-length film. It is based on the story by Leonid Andreyev Judas Iscariot, and competed in the 35rd Moscow IFF. Bogatyryov was born in Moscow in 1985. He got his degree in directing documentary films from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography. He has made a dozen of documentary films and TV programs. Judas will be presented at Molodist by actor Andrey Barilo.

Shame is a drama by Yusup Rasykov about the unfaithful wife of a submarine crewman on the Kola Peninsula, where the submarine sinks. The director was born in 1957 in Tashkent, into the family of a military officer. He graduated from VGIK in 1986, with a degree in screenwriting. For 15 years he worked for Mosfilm, and in 1999 became director of Uzbekfilm studios. He was director and screenwriter of the first Uzbek TV series. His film Shame won a FIPRESCI Prize at the 2013 Karlovy Vary Film Festival. At Molodist, the film will be presented by director of photography Yuri Mikhailishin.

Russia, 2010. A factory worker, together with his friends, starts an independent trade union in order to protect the workers’ rights, but then he betrays his comrades and gets killed. For Marx… is a new film by Svetlana Baskova about naïve socialism in the society of aggressive capitalism. Baskova is well-known as a representative of the underground cinema. Her debut film Cocci – The Running Doctor features post-modern artists, and The Green Elephant (1999) was dubbed “the dirtiest film of the millennium”. In 2011 Baskova became director of the BAZA Institute of Contemporary Art and Criticism. The film For Marx will be presented at Molodist by producer Andrey Silvestrov.

Molodist’s Russian program will be closed by Georgy Paradzhanov’s film-recollection, Everybody’s Gone (Russia, Georgia, Czech Republic). The film, made in the genre of magic realism, portrays the life of Armenians in the semi-mythical Soviet Union of the 1960s. The main character (the director’ alter ego) attempts to return to his childhood, spent in the old Tbilisi, to find answers to the questions his present life poses. Paradzhanov’s film I’m A Seagull! (2000) was premiered at the 57th Venice Film Festival, winning the Gold Medal of the Lumiere Brothers. The film I Died In Childhood (2004) was premiered at the 57th Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, his documentary Let Our Days Be Long was screened at the 62nd Venice Film Festival. Everybody’s Gone premiered at the 34th Moscow Film Festival. At the 43rd Molodist, the film will be presented by producer Yekaterina Filippova.

The films from the Russian Film Week program will be screened in Zhovten cinema.